Guix

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Guix is a functional package manager and configuration management system for the GNU operating system. It enables the reproducible installation and management of software through immutable packages and declarative configuration descriptions.

Contents view
Freedom for the user:
  • to add software to the store
  • to create their own profile from elements in the store
  • to build a personalised version of software

What does Guix allow?

  • Create your own environments in a highly flexible manner without the assistance of cluster administrators (i.e., without being root).
  • Create different working contexts (profiles).
  • Have a ‘recipe’ for your software, in order to share, install, and use your own library.

Getting started (each session)

source /opt/ohpc/pub/guix-start.sh

Updating the Guix repository

guix pull

Package management

Lister les paquets installés

guix package -I

Search for packages

https://packages.guix.gnu.org/ allows you to search for packages, as command-line searches are very verbose.

Command line search

guix search emacs -> faire une recherche d'emacs

Enter ‘q’ to exit the display.

Installation / Uninstallation

guix remove packet_name -> Remove packet
guix install packet_name -> install
guix install emacs python@3 python-tensorly -> install emacs python in version 3…
which python3 -> To view where python3 is
~/.guix-profile/bin/python3

The common “store”

The following commands show that the installed programs do not clutter up your directory but are located in /gnu/store common to all! Installing a user can be very quick if another user has already done the installation. Only Unix links are created! What’s more, this means you don’t have to install the programme several times.

ls -l ~/.guix-profile/bin/python3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 69 Jan 1 1970 ~/.guix-profile/bin/python3 -> /gnu/store/8s8k2v6b5b7lyf5y5n534cjd9sipgas6-python-3.10.7/bin/python3 ->

Profiles

Installing packages in a profile

Let’s install gcc version 8 and lapack in the profile named gcc8lapack

guix install -p $GUIX_USER_PROFILE_DIR/gcc8lapack gcc-toolchain@8 lapack -> Install softs in gcc8lapack profile
guix package -p $GUIX_USER_PROFILE_DIR/gcc8lapack -I -> list profile's softs

Add vim to the profile

guix install -p $GUIX_USER_PROFILE_DIR/gcc8lapack vim
guix package -p $GUIX_USER_PROFILE_DIR/gcc8lapack -I -> List the contents of the profile

Managing profiles

The list of profiles

guix package --list-profiles

Go to a profile

guix shell -p $GUIX_USER_PROFILE_DIR/"gcc8lapack"
gcc --version -> gcc (GCC) 8.5.0
exit
gcc --version -> System gcc version

Generations management

guix package --list-generations -> Lists the successive "generations"/stages of the guix environment.
guix package --roll-back -> Returns to the previous generation.
guix package --switch-generation=42 -> switch to gen 42 
guix gc --delete-generations -> delete backuped's generations
guix package -p $GUIX_USER_PROFILE_DIR/"gcc8lapack" --list-generations -> Lists the "generations" of the gcc8lapack profile.

Channels

Edit ~/.config/guix/channels.scm file to add some channels. Example :

(append
(list (channel
(name 'guix-hpc)
(url "https://gitlab.inria.fr/guix-hpc/guix-hpc.git")
(branch "master")))
%default-channels)

HPC and Guix

This article is an introduction, an invitation to experiment with guix. Numerous possibilities for exploiting HPC/slurm exist but have yet to be documented. This requires time that will be mobilised when we have users who want to try it out: they are welcome!

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